The Playwright’s Playwrights: Look Back in Anger
* 07 July 2012

There is something to be said for the notion of pure performance
- acting stripped down so the physical setting is discarded,
leaving only the voice of those on a stage and your own
imagination. If you were one of the lucky few who managed to snag a
ticket to the one off reading of John Osbourne's renowned play
'Look Back in Anger' on Friday 6 July 2012 at the Duke of York's
Theatre in London, pure performance was demonstrated for you in
spades.

It's difficult to call this a review - since the play will never
be performed again in this setting or form it would be churlish to
attempt to do so. Instead, we'll describe and examine what we saw
as best we can, as ultimately the reading served as a window into
the actor's craft in a way we've possibly never seen before. The
performance was part of The Royal Court at The Dukes of York's
Playwright's Playwrights season, where a writer would pick an
existing play of their choice and direct it in less than two days.
Look Back in Anger was chosen by Polly Stenham, an award
winning writer whose first play 'That Face' featured Lindsey Duncan
and Matt Smith in its first performance in 2007.

The reading took the form of five actors sat on chairs on stage
- the set actually dressed for a separate play performed every
evening entitled 'Posh', a fact that is somewhat ironic considering
the piece's subject matter. The ensemble took the form of Benedict
Cumberbatch, Rebecca Hall (The Awakening; The Prestige; and the
currently filming Iron Man 3), Matt Ryan (The Tudors, Torchwood),
Anna Maxwell Martin (Becoming Jane, South Riding), and Julian
Wadham (The Madness of King George, The Iron Lady). With a cast
like that, we knew we were in for a bit of a treat, and thanks to
the depth of the subject matter, no one disappointed. Osbourne's
play is a ferocious, dark, moving and very funny examination of the
young of the mid nineteen fifties in Britain. Children born during
the Second World War, all the characters are fractured and
directionless, and most importantly very, very bored with their
lives. The play is of course famous for coining the phrase 'Angry
Young Men', terminology that has entered the lexicon of both public
life and popular culture, as well as bringing a depth of social
realism to the stage that until it's first performance had never
been attempted in such a manner.

As the lead character Jimmy, Benedict Cumberbatch gained the
lion's share of the piece, as well as the greatest gamut of
emotions. While it would be very simple for an actor to simply
remain seated and read the lines by wrote off the page, Benedict
was an animated presence through - though first impressions seemed
against that, as at the start he simply lounged in his chair,
crossed legs outstretched, with the script held directly in front
of his face so no one in the audience could see him. But of course,
this was all part of his portrayal of the character, for Jimmy when
we meet him is reclining lazily, reading the Sunday papers. This
theme of seated theatrical physicality stayed throughout the entire
reading, with Benedict acting out the stage direction of the
script, plus his own embellishments, as it went along. On numerous
occasions you gained the sense of someone constrained by the
requirement to sit, an obvious desire to be up and around that
stage, thrashing and trashing it as Jimmy's self control slips and
returns. As well as being furiously funny and angrily impassioned,
some moments of the play allowed Benedict to demonstrate his famous
ability to cry on cue, as well as his gifted vocal and impression
skills, changing his accent through numerous permutations and
countries as Jimmy's comedically bitter rage continued to spiral
out of control. There was one other little residual thought that
came over us having seen Benedict's reading of Jimmy - this would
have been Sherlock Holmes had he been born without his intellect
but retaining his desire for new experiences and the resultant
frustrations when he couldn't attain them.

While none of the other cast were required to perform the sheer
passion that Benedict imbued into his reading, all were superb.
Rebecca Hall played Jimmy's wife Alison with gentle sweetness and a
bubbling, latent frustration and fear at her husband. Most notable
was her interaction with Benedict, at times giving the sense that
despite being sat a couple of feet apart, both could have been
performing the play properly through their very vocal work.
Benedict and Rebecca are of course playing husband and wife in the
upcoming BBC/HBO First World War Miniseries 'Parade's End', due to
screen later in 2012. We were already looking forward to the series
immensely, but having seen the pair perform so intimately together
onstage our expectations for the Mammoth Screen production are now
simply through the roof.

As Cliff, Matt Ryan is an unknown to us, but he imbued the role
with the suitable degree of level headedness, nobility and
sweetness that makes him a perfect counter to Jimmy's nature and
the situation the household finds itself in. While not above
joining in with Jimmy, and doing his best to be a strong friend to
all in the cramped house, Cliff requires a degree of quiet realism
compared to his counterpart's ferociously changeable moods, and he
is consistently the better man - he clearly loves Alison in his own
way, and shows it physically apart from the ultimate, sexual stage.
Matt gave the reading its caring heart and a sense of normalcy
against the chaos of the emotions of others and the events that
ensue.

Anna Maxwell Martin is one of those memorable actresses that
appears in numerous productions in small roles but makes a distinct
impact. The same was true here. Absent for the entire first act,
her role as Alison's friend Helena allowed her to exhibit a degree
of the true ice queen initially, her steely and quiet hatred of
Jimmy palpable, before softening in a manner that would have been
shocking to an audience of the mid nineteen fifties. She is
ultimately a strong person who realises the error of her actions of
her own volition, and is thus a catalyst for Jimmy to do the same
by the close.

The company was rounded out by Julian Wadham, playing both
Alison's father Colonel Redfern and narrating the majority of the
stage direction from the script. A man by his own admission who is
out of touch with 'the modern world' - or more than likely, by his
title, this Post-war era - Redfern, though brief, is a role that
requires a degree of sympathy and warmth, and Julian imbued his
reading with plenty.

The sense throughout the entire performance was a distinct sense
of pleasure from the entire cast, all enjoying the experience and
each other's reading of the words on the page immensely, listening
and watching when they were not reading themselves. This
performance of Look Back in Anger was a truly unique experience for
all involved, and us as an audience. The chance to see actors
performing at this level after only rehearsing two days beforehand
makes us long for a full production with this ensemble, but we'll
content ourselves with the chance to see Benedict Cumberbatch and
Rebecca Hall portray another fracturing marriage and all the
attendant emotions later this year in Parade's End. As it was, this
reading gave us that true window into how actors approach material
near the start, before it can be refined into a full production for
an audience, night after night. It was a fantastic privilege of an
afternoon, and provided an electrifying experience.